When an armed black radical group refused to surrender, the police responded with deadly and unprecedented force. By Alex Q. Arbuckle.

If you believe in democracy, the federal government’s out-of-control surveillance should worry you. By Sarah St. Vincent.

Efforts range from charging people for the costs of policing to making. By Ruthann Robson.

At a Portland alt-right rally, there was evidence that federal Department of Homeland Security police were cooperating with militia members. By Arun Gupta.

Detroit police play murderous ‘death game’ with teens during 1967 riot. By Bart Bealmear, with Danielle L. McGuire.

The FBI has illegally shared raw intelligence about Americans with unauthorized third parties and violated other constitutional privacy protections, according to newly declassified government documents that undercut the bureau’s public assurances about how carefully it handles warrantless spy data to avoid abuses or leaks. By John Solomon and Sara Carter.

Internal TigerSwan documents provide a detailed picture of how the mercenary firm surveilled Dakota Access Pipeline opponents and infiltrated protest camps. By Alleen Brown, Will Parrish, Alice Speri.

Former Senator Joe Lieberman is reportedly President Trump’s leading choice to replace the recently-fired James Comey as FBI director. If you’re a person who values free speech and press freedom rights, it’s hard to imagine a worse pick for FBI director than Lieberman. By Trever Timm.

Felony case is part of what civil rights campaigners say is a disturbing trend of arresting users over innocuous political messages that constitute free speech. By Sam Levin.

The cases likely mark first time that U.S. authorities have pursued felonies against people involved in demonstrations against fossil fuel infrastructure. By Will Parrish.

The right-wing extremist’s disregard for the Constitution is well documented, and now he’s reportedly joining Trump’s DHS. By John Nichols.

Given how much the media has hampered his administration, Trump’s goal seems to be to snuff it out any way possible. By Trevor Timm.

Amid the chaos of James Comey’s firing, new questions about the timeline of his fateful investigation. By Matt Taibbi.

The sordid history of America’s extralegal secret police—initially named the Bureau of Investigation […] is mostly a history of xenophobic panic-mongering, illegal domestic spying, mass roundups and plans for mass-roundups, false entrapment schemes, and planting what Russians call “kompromat”— compromising information about a target’s sex life—to blackmail or destroy American political figures that the FBI didn’t like.” By Mark Ames.

There’s nothing to celebrate about the FBI — it isn’t, nor has it ever been, a guardian of democracy. By Branko Marcetic.

Current bail practices amount to a state-sponsored war on the less fortunate.

If you’re unconcerned by the termination of FBI Director James Comey, the views of Ben Wittes, who typically thinks civil libertarians are being alarmist, might change your mind. By Conor Friedersdorf.

Dan Heyman “was causing a disturbance by yelling questions” at HHS Secretary Tom Price and Kellyanne Conway, according to a criminal complaint. By Samantha Schmidt.

CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues' new book exposes the under-reported "ghost skins": hidden white supremacists in law enforcement.

Louise Erdrich on Postcommodity’s Ceremonial Transformation of LRAD.